The future of devices (e.g., computing devices such as computers, cameras, appliances, etc.) or other objects will change by the ability to communicate with other devices and the World Wide Web. For example, the Internet of Things (IoT) is the idea where devices in environments such as home automation, health care, emergency response, intelligent shopping, smart product management, environmental sensing, smart meters, waste management, urban planning can communicate with other devices and the World Wide Web. The devices in these environments communicate using protocols that can enable many devices to connect to a network and communicate in an efficient and reliable way. One challenge is to add connections within one contention region (where wireless devices' are physically close enough that their transmission may interfere with each other) when the available network spectrum is limited.
For example, for devices to connect, they usually need to use a portion of the spectrum (e.g., wireless band) to send messages to an appropriate receiver. However, when other devices within the same contention region also attempt to access the spectrum, there will be increasing collisions and access delay as the number of devices increase. As more devices attempt to access the same spectrum, the more contention is created and, as a result, connection attempts can fail. These issues and similar issues can be worse when devices use popular wireless bands such as the Industrial, Scientific and Medical Radio Band of 2.4 GHz which is also used by other standards based on different channel definition within the band. For this band, IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 share the spectrum and avoid collisions by switching channels in such a way that there is no overlap among the utilized channels around neighboring devices. This feature is called “frequency agility” and is defined in ZigBee RF4CE Specification Version 1.01. However, devices that use the same standard are usually required to stay on the same channel. This means contention will not be controlled among nodes using 802.15.4 standard.
Thus, there is a need to manage better use of spectrum when multiple channels are available within a single standard (or various standards) and can be distributed among devices to reduce contention among neighboring nodes.